The memoir Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing describes using a heated icepick.
You take a chestnut, and you hook the ice pick. You wait until nobody is in the kitchen, and then one kid presses down on the pilot-light button so that a long delicate blue finger of flame comes out, and the other kid puts the ice pick in the flame until it is red-hot. When it is, he bores a hole in the chestnut. You do as many as you can until somebody comes and asks you what you are doing, and then, according to your standing in the family, that day, you either plead, argue, or say, “Oh, jeez,” and slink away.
You take a chestnut, and you hook the ice pick. You wait until nobody is in the kitchen, and then one kid presses down on the pilot-light button so that a long delicate blue finger of flame comes out, and the other kid puts the ice pick in the flame until it is red-hot. When it is, he bores a hole in the chestnut. You do as many as you can until somebody comes and asks you what you are doing, and then, according to your standing in the family, that day, you either plead, argue, or say, “Oh, jeez,” and slink away.